FS23 Revival: A Walk Through the Decades

Words and Images by Keyona Fazli, Head Writer

Pitch black. Two screens lit on either side of the runway. ‘REVIVAL’ in block capitals against a moving background of seductive flashing fashion, archive videos, and icons of the decades.

This is how FS started their show.

With Elvis and the Beatles blasting from the speakers, the models emerged, moving to the beat with choreography in sync. The 2023 concept of REVIVAL was incredibly thought-provoking, seemingly on many people’s minds during this post-COVID year. By taking vintage items and transporting their audience through time with a cacophony of temporality, in both visual art, music, and fashion, FS placed us in a time machine, chronologically moving forwards until they reached the present in the second half of the show. The sensory overload produced a chaotic, yet whimsical fluttering through time and space.

My favourite parts of the show included pieces from blair borthwick and The Savile Row Company, with contemporary artistic abstraction meeting a canonical sense of British refinement. The former featured sleek, willowy pieces of fabric, appearing almost as if they had deconstructed a contemporary canvas and sewn together various pinks, blues, reds, and oranges, reminiscent of a sunset landscape. As borthwick is an abstract artist, their designs capture nature, mythology, and femininity, all of which were embraced in the designs that appeared onstage.

This part in the show is where I felt FS played with androgyny the most, as well as in select pieces from Our Shift, a Danish brand, whose ethos is built around a responsibility to upcycle and reintegrate landfill-bound fashion into new, wearable works. ‘STOP F*CKING BURNING CLOTHES’, they wrote in 2021, a representation of their commitment to saving landfill clothes to protect the environment. Here, FS’s commitment to sustainability builds on their reputation from last year’s show, following through on their F4TE campaigns against fast fashion. For the most part, the designers at FS were smaller, less known brands, however, the sparsity of large names seems to work in their favour, pointing toward a more sustainable outlook.

A nod to elegance and tradition, contrasting with the bursts of colour from other contemporary designers, was the collection of custom-made suits from The Savile Row Company. Centred around bespoke pieces, the company takes a personal approach to their fashion, immediately creating a Kingsman-esque feel of comfort and class, without losing their sense of creativity.

One of the more compelling works, an all-white Ben Wu piece with spikes emerging from all angles, unfortunately did not make it down the full length of the runway. Logistically, while the stage stayed in the same format as it did to last year’s show, with the audience interspersed in between, I felt rather disconnected to the show, with the pace of the models feeling incredibly quick as they moved across the long stage space.

Aside from the few awe-inspiring designs mentioned, I found myself wishing for a wider focus on the styles of queer BIPOC individuals such as Marsha P. Johnson to accompany music that would have played at iconic gay clubs such as the Stonewall Inn. Bursts of colour alongside drag fashion would have added to the aesthetics of the show, and provided representation of one of the most influential moments in queer and fashion history.

Captivating and with a compelling ethos, FS23 will be remembered for their commitment to aesthetic detail, and for their ability to seamlessly take us through time. With a team dedicated to both sustainability and quality, and with their mastery of visual art and musical presentation, FS has left us eagerly waiting to see what will come next.